Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in AustriaThe Other Side - Mirrors and Reflections in Contemporary Art

The Other Side - Mirrors and Reflections in Contemporary Art AUSTRIAVIENNA • Belvedere • Ongoing

Vienna's Belvedere has undertaken to elucidate various aesthetic and symbolic aspects of the reflecting surface. Not only has the mirror been of great significance in the history of art and culture, but it can also look back on a century- old tradition as a magical and symbolic object. In several ancient civilisations, it was considered an image of the soul, while in European medieval art it functioned as an emblem of chastity, transience, sensual pleasure, and a passion for finery. In the Baroque age, on the other hand, it was a symbol of vanity – the futility of all human ambition. The mirror is a medium of self-perception and of the narcissistic doubling of one’s self, while it is also a threshold leading to a parallel universe or a different modality of existence, such as in Through the Looking - Glass 1 , where it functions as a means of expanding one’s mind.